ASEAN Beat | Security | Southeast Asia

Philippines Rejects Chinese Claim to ‘Sovereign Rights’ Over Waters Around Batanes

The Chinese activities around the Philippines’ northernmost province represent the opening of a new front in the maritime struggle between the two nations.

A screenshot from a video released by the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) shows a rigid-hulled inflatable boat from PCG circling the Jia Ha Ke 7, a Chinese research vessel, in the waters off Batanes, Philippines, Oct. 1, 2026.

The Philippine government today rejected China’s assertion that it has sovereign rights and jurisdiction over waters off Batanes, the country’s northernmost province, a day after the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) drove away a Chinese research vessel operating in the area.

The PCG said yesterday that it had deployed its largest vessel and an aircraft to challenge the Jia Ha Ke 7, a Chinese research ship, that had been “loitering” around 37 nautical miles northwest of Batanes for the past four days. During the confrontation, PCG spokesperson Jay Tarriela said that a China Coast Guard vessel also moved in and “repeatedly tried to shield the research vessel and block the PCG ship.”

The Philippine operation nonetheless “successfully disrupted the unauthorized marine scientific research” being conducted by the Jia He Ke 7 and “compelled it to leave the position it had held off Itbayat, Batanes, for four days.”

China’s embassy in Manila responded by claiming that the Chinese research vessel was “conducting normal operations in waters under China’s jurisdiction in accordance with international law.” It urged the Philippines to “genuinely respect China’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the relevant waters,” and to cease its “provocative interference with China’s normal scientific research activities.”

In a statement today, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it “firmly and strongly rejects” the Chinese claims of sovereignty over the waters around Batanes, a group of islands lying midway between Taiwan and the Philippines’ Luzon island. It argued that the Chinese research vessel was operating well within the country’s 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), where, according to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), marine scientific........

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